Neverending Story
by Phoenix To Flame
Summary: After everything, the deathgiver and the dreamseer would live out everything else, as those who were companions of the Earth herself. Even when the world turned to dust, they walked together, leaving trailing footsteps through the gray.


Out of all of my stories that I'm uploading right now, this one is actually my favorite. I'm not quite sure why. But I really liked writing it, and I'm most pleased with it as it ended up.

Maybe it's cause it's my shortest as well...

* * *

><p>He didn't see the sunrise anymore.<br>Not that he saw sun_set_ for that matter. Day and night had long since blended into constant half-light, like that of rainy dawns.  
>Of course, it didn't rain any more. Or shine, or bluster, or do anything not monotonous. Even the dreams of the Earth showed nothing more than consistent, endless fields of gray dust, raising into towers that had been mountains many eras before, or where it dipped far down into oceans of skeletons, birds and fish and whales that crumbled to pieces at the slightest touch.<br>Kakyou didn't understand why he still lived, why the Earth kept him just as he was when the previous seer died, blood spraying from her ruined and mutilated heart. It would have seemed more likely that the Earth, petulant and cruel as she could be, would have let him and his companion pass on so she could begin again.  
>"Maybe even the Earth misses that which lived for her before, and keeps us alive so she isn't alone." His only friend answered his apparently voiced thought. He leaned over top of him, body warm against Kakyou's, the one other warmth left in the world. Beautiful mismatched eyes met his, with their disagreeing colors and buried emotions. "Or we could be in Mu, the nothingness, and this is the price for stealing time from those who should have lived."<br>"Subaru..." He trailed off, feeling exasperated, a not uncommon emotion to feel when talking to the Sakurazukamori in one of his less lucid states of mind, where the past floated tepid in the immediate reaches of his thoughts, and left him voicing his very old and self-loathing opinions. "Can you possibly have a conversation about life that does not turn into talking about what you do and don't deserve?"  
>"Yes." Was the weary, bitter, concise reply. "I just choose to remember."<br>Kakyou snorted in brief annoyance, but let the feeling go. Too many years with no one but the last Sumeragi leader had left them with no secrets, not even the darkest ones usually barely admitted to themselves. Contractual immortality was pretty much something to only be shared with those who also felt the weight of it's chains.  
>Subaru let out a quiet rush of air, too soft and forgiving to be a sigh as he gently held a strand of Kakyou's hair between gloved fingertips. "Mu would mean I would be alone in the blankness. Since I am not alone, we are not in Mu."<br>Kakyou found himself smiling up at the unfathomable man. "There are worse people to be with as the last guardians of the earth."  
>Subaru's mouth was a soft reprimand without words, already forgiving, and mostly amused. His soft grin was like the sun breaking through the clouds.<br>The cool fabric of Subaru's jacket brushed against his hands as the other man got up off of him, shaking away the everpresent dust. Kakyou considered the idea of joining his partner in standing, and dismissed it in the same span of time it took Subaru to decide otherwise for himn bending over enough to capture Kakyou's hands within his, pulling him to his feet in a swirl of white fabric and dirt.  
>He stumbled, legs wobbling, and Subaru didn't let go of him, cradling and steadying him instead, accepting his physical instability the same way Kakyou accepted his mental imbalance. The dizziness pased and a temporary strength seemed to flow from the ground into his weary feet, weary heart.<p>

Their footsteps stretched out far behind them, spilling over into each other's like timeless lovers along a beach. Together, they had watched their friends, their world, their hearts and perhaps even their lives, crumble to dust, for who could say if enforced immortality could be considered living?  
>Subaru's steadying grip shifted to a kinder one, and the unbroken gray before them was marred by their unwavering path.<br>And they walked, one foot after another, the unbearable silence stretching on elastic breaths between them. Linked hands and entwined finger the only certainty in a lifeless world.  
>White and black, dreamseer and deathgiver. Last two alive by the whims of a lonely planet.<br>Footsteps spilled over like long forgotten trails in the stars.


End file.
